Figuring out the berry’s health benefits, on the other hand, will have you wading into a raging debate.

A lot of good things have been said about cranberries: it’s anti-inflammatory, a cure for urinary tract infections, an antioxidant powerhouse.

Whether these are health myths or legitimate science, it’s clear that the fruit’s place in scientific literature is far from settled.

Now, Ocean Spray appears to be putting their money where their mouth is with a pledge of $10 million over the next five years to study the berry as well as to launch other health-related initiatives.

The company will also open their Ocean Spray Cranberry Health Institute, in tandem, next year.

Christina Khoo, PhD, director of Global Health Science and Nutrition Policy at Ocean Spray, says their focus is on cranberry’s potential antimicrobial benefits and its role in helping to combat antimicrobial resistance.

“In communicating and talking to researchers as well as people that are having issues with [urinary tract infections], we realized the importance of the effect of maintaining urinary tract health to this issue of antibiotic resistance,” Khoo told Healthline. “We can’t help but see all the news and announcements about antibody resistance and what a serious issue it is.”

“We feel like we need to help accelerate the activity on our cranberry health research and focus on getting an alternative to antibiotics,” she added.

The scientific debate

Khoo is exuberant about the company’s financial pledge.

However, research on whether or not cranberries really have the kind of potential that is being touted — by a cranberry company no less — has invited a fair amount of skepticism.

Cranberries have attained an almost mythical level of healthfulness from use as a primitive antibiotic to use now to prevent urinary tract infections (UTIs).

While many swear by the fruit’s goodness, it has proven significantly harder to demonstrate on paper.

Dr. David Ginsberg, an associate professor of clinical urology at the University of Southern California (USC), told Healthline, “I don’t think that we’ve solved the issue. The quality of the studies isn't great, so it’s not clear-cut whether or not this is helpful in a large placebo-controlled trial or not.”

He does add, however, that in his practice, “We have patients that are on lots of cranberry juice.”

A lot of attention has been paid to one particular compound present in cranberries known as A-type proanthocyanidin, commonly called PAC.

“We get recurring UTI patients who do get increasingly resistant bacteria over time as they get more and more antibiotics, absolutely. Thankfully it’s not incredibly common, but I wouldn’t say that it’s uncommon and rare either,” said Ginsberg.

Frequent and repetitive use of antibiotics to treat recurring UTIs fosters a greater risk of resistance — a topic which has been touched on at great length over the past two years by many news organizations.

Khoo stresses that finding an alternative way to treat UTIs and help to stop the growing trend of antibiotic resistance is paramount.

So, why not take a closer look at cranberries, she suggests.

“By setting up the Cranberry Health Institute, we hope to make people aware of this issue and to make people aware that UTI is a contributor to this issue. It is the second most common infection that results in antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance, and it only continues to build,” said Khoo.

Even for the skeptical, the promise of millions of dollars in funding to help research what is possibly one of the greatest dangers in the foreseeable future seems like a good thing.

According to Ginsberg, there are still a lot of questions about cranberries and UTIs that need to be answered.

However, he says the bottom line is this: do they help UTIs, and, if so, how can their use be implemented in medical care?

“Those are all issues that if someone wants to throw some money at this, and well-done studies are done, then that’s fantastic,” he says. “Why not?”